Obviously, 100 roof top panels is 100 times as big as 1 roof top panel.
Any comparison to non roof top panel system is obviously invalid, since those systems aren’t supposed to exist in a perfect world.
(Do I really need to include the sarc tag?)

I think you just hit the nail on the head. Follow the money. Do any of the decision makers on the government side own SunPower stocks? How about the lobbyists who strong armed the government decision makers?

Its intent is not to generate useable, economical electricity. The intent is an offering to the Climate Change deity, Gaia. Or you could also be viewed as a religious shrine evoke a favor from Gaia by preventing some amount of the evil “carbon pollution” gas into the atmosphere. Because, as the belief goes, if you don’t at least do something, Gaia is going to fry us. Take it on faith. And open your wallets.
Meanwhile, the solar panel crony capitalists continue to reap the rewards behind the scenes and funnel political $upport to Democrats.

Once this mess is up and running watch the way that it will be described … the system “can” produce … it “could” replace … has the “potential” to … they will never say what it actually achieves. Watch the Greenies and the Libs, they always talk about something that might be, not about what really “is,” which really depends on what the meaning of “is” is.

The “monster-sized” labeling has far more to do with the physical connections needed to link 300 locations to one storage source rather than the actual electric output or storage capability. These connections will likely require (1) adding additional conductors to existing or new distribution feeders and/or (2) committing “x” amount of load to an existing conductor. Either way, this results in a monster-sized inefficiency within an electrical grid built specifically and historically for reliability. if you were to evaluate this project from a global warming potential, I believe it represents a negative for the environment (at least initially) when compared to more traditional (i.e., fossil fuel) generation sources. More troubling, though, is the deliberate introduction of multiple points of failure on an otherwise reliable system – that’s just dumb from any engineering perspective.

James Schrumpf, your “rain tax” sounds a lot like the “road tax” that we pay on motor fuel. What the proponents of electric vehicles never mention is where the money is going to come from to maintain the highways that the fuel tax is now supposed to.
Ian M

@Ian – don’t worry, both the federal government and state governments have a plan for that. However, a total switchover will not happen, anyway. The grid system and the United States government will both collapse long before that fantasy happens.

To put this in context regarding baseload power generation see our article “Going Solar-System Requirements For 100% U.S. Solar Generated Utility Baseload Electricity” which goes through the science, math, and economics of solar power. http://fusion4freedom.us/going-solar/ Fossil fuels and nuclear (fission today and fusion for the grandkids) are the only realistic alternatives.

Did you notice these points:
The idea behind the Con Edison venture is to create a virtual solar power plant with the specific aim of not having to build an extra “peaker” plant to supply extra power to the grid during peak use periods
and:
In case of a widespread power outage, the home owner can draw electricity from their own battery
This battery design is I believe smart enough to provide power at points where grid electricity cost is higher (I don’t know if NY has differential pricing).

Its big for a virtual solar plant – this is in first half dozen rolled out by conventional power companies (one other equivalent in suburban Oz).
This is the future for (conventional) power companies – it means they don’t need to build more plant/string more power lines to meet increased demand

I just love it when you Green bedwetters wax ecstatic over the merits of batteries – one of the most ecologically destructive artefacts that technology has managed to create. Solar panels – particularly the inverters and control circuitry – aren’t particularly brilliant either.
But hey Grifter, who cares about a few hundred square miles of utter devastation, along with massive damage to the health of those unlucky to be dwelling there, on the other side of the planet, when you little bedwetters are ‘Saving the World™’?

You saving the world much?
Off topic, I know you were a DT poster… you know how/where AlecM is? If you post on any of same forums, please pass on my regards: though we could not be further apart in viewpoint, he has a great sense of humour and I loved his jokes.

“You saving the world much?”
A great deal more than you, I suspect. The family fortune (such as it is) is based on over half a century of recycling of waste amounting to many millions of tons, starting decades before it became fashionable. I have been using low energy bulbs ever since they appeared decades ago, my house is fully insulated and for daily transport I run an elderly turbo diesel Mercedes that does around 45MPG mostly on rapeseed oil.
All of the above are purely a matter of economics, with no ulterior motive, of course.
I have sat on the committee of a number of charitable trusts, on one in particular I was able through my engineering experience to save the trust many thousands of pounds per annum in electricity and gas bills, and with the exception of my disagreement with the CAGW brigade I would consider myself a convinced and effective environmentalist.
Alec is alive and well over at Breitbart.

New York is no stranger to whackadoodle ventures. In 1869 Scientific American promoted the construction of a pneumatic subway in New York. It lasted from 1870-1873.
“The Beach Pneumatic Transit was the first attempt to build an underground public transit system in New York City. It was developed by Alfred Ely Beach in 1869 as a demonstration subway line running on pneumatic power. As the subway line had one stop and a one-car shuttle going back and forth, it was merely a novelty and not a regular mode of transport. It lasted from 1870 until 1873.”
I’m sure they claimed it would be the model for subways worldwide. What went wrong? The leather seals didn’t last, them not having access to petroleum based plastics. For the solar project, I’ll put my money on the bird kaka and the cost of union kakacleaners.
Oh wait, there’s the issue of networking all these electrical generators and getting it to work right. I suggest going back to the wisdom of 1865 – connect all the treadmills in NY together with a system of shafts and pulleys, running down to and under the streets, pumping water to rooftop pumped storage units and finally driving a mighty 100 Watt Edison generator that he promises will be ready by 1873 and a yet to be invented light bulb. Substitute iPhone for light bulb.

Monster SizedPhysically yes : panels and batteries all over the placeOutput no : less than 20% capacity factor from the panels and the piddly storage (would power only 1000 households using 4 kWh for one hour) doesn’t help that at all – Greens don’t understand that storage doesn’t generate any electricity on its own.
Greens hate maths because being able to do and understand maths destroys their hopeful fantasies

Recruit? With what bait? What rate subsidies will NYC promise the homeowners?

“…connect more than 1.8 megawatts of solar power…”

Aand there are how many fully self solar powered homes out there?
leaving just how many dregs of solar power per homeowner that just might be available during the sunniest of days?
Couple that with what must be a very expensive contractor devised plan, yet to be developed connection costs, some sort of central lame battery storage idea, not forgetting the homeowner lure they haven’t told us about.

So what about the cost for this?
First assumption is that all of the installed equipment is meticulously maintained, with snow and ice and bird droppings and leaves and dust removed when necessary by the homeowners so that output capacity is close to predictions.
With 1.8 MW capacity and 300 homes, that comes to 6 kW AC capacity for each home.
With 4 MWhr usable storage and 300 homes, that comes to 13.3 kWhr of storage per home.
That means the Sunverge battery system for each home is probably the SIS 19.4, with 6 kW maximum output and 16.5 kWhr of usable storage for 7000 cycles.
Price is $20,000.
Or $1200 per kWhr of usable storage when new.
That needs to be tied to a solar PV system with 5 kW AC or 6 kWDC capacity.https://www.californiasolarstatistics.ca.gov/
At the CA average installed cost of $5.28/WDC, that adds another $31,700 to the bill.
The article also says homeowners will be able to operate certain items during a power outage. This likely requires additional circuits to be added in the home that are fed only by the Sunverge battery/inverter system. Add another $3,000 for that.
Total cost per household is about $55,000.
$16.5 Million for 300 homes.
Now add in the costs on Con Edison’s side for integrating the SIS data and control into the existing distribution control system. This could easily be a $20 Million project, especially if they are designing for future expansion.

Interesting, Chris – lets take the math a bit further, shall we?
1.8 mw = 1800 kw;
NREL says NY gets between 4.0 and 4.5 kwh/m^2 annualized so:
(I make the assumption that the 1.8 mw figure is based on 1m^2 panel = 1 kw power)
1800 X 4.5 = 8100 kwh/day 8100 X 365 (days/yr) X 20 years = 59,130,000 kwh over 20 years.
$16,500,000 / 59,130,000 = $.279 / kwh over the 20 year lifespan of the panels
According to Forbes, the current electricity rate in NY is about $.25/kwh, though it’s expected to go up. The rest of the US averages about $.14, so NY is already paying extra for electricity.
All this assumes ZERO additional costs for maintenance, breakage/failure, cleaning, etc. (I also didn’t include ConEd’s costs)
I am also more than a bit leery of NREL’s 4.5 kw/m^2 annualized figure – that seems high to me, perhaps I’m not reading their map correctly? I wonder if that figure is for sunny days only or if it includes weather days? I got it at this page : http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html

This is a good website for insolation data collected by NREL over multiple years for various solar panel installation types-http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/1961-1990/redbook/sum2/state.html
The Central Park data for fixed tilt at latitude is 4.6 kwh/m^2/day, which basically agrees with what you found. I think it is a pretty reliable number as it is based on measured data in-situ (it is marked as a primary station site by NREL).
But it assumes the surface is never encumbered with snow, debris, dust, shadows, etc.

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